


The Forest

by weeesi



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Angst, M/M, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, POV First Person, POV Patroclus, Trojan War, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:37:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeesi/pseuds/weeesi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come with me.” His breath is humid and sweet on my skin. I cannot resist him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Forest

**Author's Note:**

> This is set at an indeterminate time during the Trojan War. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading.  
> xx  
> w

“Patroclus.”

My eyes open in an instant. His timbre of his voice curls into the depths of me, resting in the known spaces made there only for him. Achilles is bent at an angle over the length of my body, his eyes sharp and solemn in the darkness of the tent. Smoke lingers in the air, pungent and creeping. It is night still, barely. Daylight will threaten us in a few short hours, bringing with it the burden of fate.

“Come with me.” His breath is humid and sweet on my skin. I cannot resist him. The warm mess of bedcovers furl at my feet as I stretch to stand and face him, nude. He allows himself a lingering moment, his gaze studiously tracing the wearied lines of my body. I do not see what he sees. In him I see the beginning and the end of my life.

I throw a tunic over my head as he turns and pushes aside the opening; I follow him wordlessly. We move discreetly through the network of tents spread out across the wide stretch of beach, our bare feet making quick work of avoiding kindling wood and abandoned refuse piled beside the fire pits scorched into the earth like scars. Ash dresses the sides of our ankles, lingering dark tattoos against our tanned skin. I do not speak to him, nor him to me, yet our movements are tandem as we make our way to the boundary of the camp, pressing outside the safe ring of guarded light and into the unknown depths of the forest, up into the hills, away from the salt-heavy pull of the sea. Distant waves crash in echoes, a complementary rhythm against the drumming of my heartbeat in my ears. Achilles glances back over a sinewy shoulder to catch my eye. Excitement crowds his features; the flash of pearl white teeth beckons me to follow him.

I close in on him as we start up a narrow path tucked between tall clusters of mountain ash and blooming yarrow, white and yellow clusters bright between golden-green leaves dotting the rocky trail. The moon provides a guide for us, illuminating our journey as our climb continues up the side of the mountain. Achilles glides over the rocks, impervious to the rapidly increasing altitude, his muscles strong and sure in their movements as though he had traced this path a thousand times. We progress in silence for long enough for the moon to move a hand width’s closer to the line of the earth, the sky turning a lighter shade of dusky charcoal. Stars resist the subtle shift as persistent constellations draw patterns on the smooth canvas of Achilles’ tunic. I feel sweat licking the back of my neck, under my arms, down the line of my chest.

“Achilles.”

He stops and turns to me, the gold in his green eyes shimmering in the weakening moonlight. Dawn is approaching. I know better than to ask where we are heading but I cannot resist the desire to see his face, to force him into a moment’s rest.

“Yes?”

He has been mine all these years and he is mine now all the same and yet, something tears at my heart beneath the tender shell of my resolve and struggles to break free. Attachment implies the possibility of loss, I know, and I know I will lose him. A moment’s greed of drinking in his face, the curve of his lips, the strength in his jaw… I can say nothing. I am weak for it.

He must have read something in my face, in the pause, and so stretches a nimble-fingered hand into the space between us, extended for mine.

“Do you remember when I waited for you, before going up the mountain to meet Chiron?”

Our hands meet, palms pressed in a long-remembered vow.

“I do. Of course I do.”

Mount Pelion feels like an age ago. Fig trees and caves and whispers, panting in the darkness. Warm, slick skin.

“I waited as well to come here with you, Patroclus. I could not come here before now.” A bird call interrupts the beat of silence, carried on a sweep of breeze from down the mountain. “Please. Before we cannot.”

Our palms drift apart. I continue to follow him.

The trail shifts gradually from rocky to soft, covered in tree needles and lichen, mossy branches drifting dreamily above our heads. I stare at his feet, so familiar to me now that I know them as well as my own. The pink cups of his heels press into the soft ground like a thumb marking the downy skin of an overripe fig. I trace his footsteps with mine, try to follow the shadows of his steps, claim the lingering spaces he leaves behind. Moments, abandoned to time.

He will be a hero, and I will lose him.

We turn eastward, curving around the side of the mountain to meet a row of cypress trees and sedge-grass lining the banks of a muddy stream. Achilles begins to follow the narrow edge, straight as the line of a throw from his spear. I am close behind him, a phantom.

The moon dips so near to the crust of the mountain that I begin to imagine it gone. Sunrise threatens the last cusp of ink from the sky and startles the birds into song, and soon Achilles himself begins to sing. At first, a sad, sweet song from our days at the palace, then a more cheerful composition he paired with my flute, back when we were young. He sings and looks back at me at the final melody of each song, and I am renewed in the heat of his eyes.

I carefully remind myself: we are still young, and we still have time.

We walk for nearly two hours until the sun appears, glowing like a bowl of honeyed wine against the pale purple-pink sunrise which spreads out like the heart of a bruise. The trees around us sway in the renewed heat of early morning, and soon the meandering stream widens into a small pool, marshy weeds and reeds dancing in the current at its edges while the center remains still and placid. My eyes rest on its depths. Only tiny insects interrupt the reflection, the mirror of treetops kissing the newly pale-blue sky; otherwise it is perfectly calm. An opening in the forest stretches to our right, across from the pool, the ground mossy and cool on our feet. Of all things, a single pear tree marks the border of the stream and the earth.

I realise my lungs are aching. Achilles is quiet.

“How did you find this place?” My voice is dampened by the sounds of the forest, the hush of the water, the murmur of branches.

“It came to me in a dream.” He presses his lips into a thin line. “We were meant to come here. It is all we have left of our memories of Pelion.”

He turns to me, the line of his mouth curving into a soft smile. “Which we can never lose, as long as we have each other.”

Oh, Achilles. I reach out for him.

The touch of his body to mine, skin dewy with clean, cool sweat, is thrilling. My tired muscles sing under his hands as he holds me to his chest, my mouth finding the place where his pulse beats thickly in his neck. The pads of his fingers play with the hem of my tunic as I press myself to him, fusing our heartbeats, the thin fabric a weak barrier between us.

After a few moments, he pulls away, eyes bright, grinning, flushed heat high in the arc of his cheeks. “Let’s swim.”

Tunics discarded, we abandon ourselves to the depths of the water.

The surface is warm from the sun, but deep beneath, the rocks slip cold and smooth below our toes. I let the water soak into my skin. Achilles floats on his back, then dives with the type of ceaseless energy reminiscent of his old ways, the old Achilles I know best. He swims underneath my legs, grasping at my backside with two hands that have known the lines of the lyre and the last breath of men.

We swim like we are boys again. 

Sunlight is streaming in hot channels filtered through tree leaves when we pull ourselves from the caress of the water and spread out to dry on the bed of moss nearby. The clearing closes in around us, protecting us from the distant noises of the camp far below. That is only a dream, and this is real. Achilles lounges beside me, muscles languid, fingers on one hand brushing the tight curls of the sage-coloured moss, eyes-half closed as he tucks the other arm beneath his head. Not from exertion, I know, as I watch the slow rise and fall of his chest.

There is an ease to him I haven’t seen in ages, a peacefulness that lingers in the gentle sway of his movements as he stretches a line of toes back and down into the water, his body lulled into stillness in the growing heat of the morning.

I love him.

Water is lapping at his toes like a kitten at milk and I lie there, I watch him, content. A thousand memories in a bouquet of scents drift over me: Achilles, pomegranate and sandalwood, almond and honey, fig and herbs. The forest, its sharp, clean smell of pine and cypress, fresh water, the combination of wet earth and dry sunlight. Olive oil soap and beeswax. Hyacinth petals and sea salt.

The solid fragrance of a piece of carved wood under my hands. The memory of it heats me through to my bones.

 _It’s you,_ I’d said.

 _I know_ , he’d said.

I feel Achilles’ hand wander between my legs.

When I turn to him, shifting onto my side, his eyes are burning. Lips stilled, plum-pink. Open. Flower nectar, ripe as fruit.

He holds me, soft, in the cup of his hand. I feel a sob in my chest, pressing against my lungs, a jolt of desire for him. Our bodies meet as they have always done, arms wrapped close around each other.

His fingertips against the skin of my spine.

My lips brush against the curve of his jaw.

The flush and heat of his skin against my chest, full to bursting, muscles trembling.

Eyelashes kissing the blush of my cheek.

Soft, downy skin. The whorl of his ear.

Sunbeams set his hair ablaze as he shifts us, presses his lips to the shell of my knee, angles us so that we are facing the most intimate parts of each other. A moment of bird song. The bubbling of the stream. And then—

He sucks me in greedily, warm wet heat encases the proof of my love for him.

In an instant I am as boneless as an eel.

My eyes drink in the lines of his hips and the curve of his ribs. I caress his thighs, wrap my fingers around the delicate bones of his ankles, pull him closer to me. We are cocooned in the forest, nothing our witness except this moment of peace.

I moan his name.

My fingers ghost over the length of him before I welcome him into my mouth, his taste intoxicating, hot and sweet against my tongue. The heavy press of him is familiar and comforting, but never ceases to send shivers through my skin, shocking echoes of lust in my blood. My pulse pounds in my veins. He reaches for my hand and winds long fingers through the spaces there, clasping tight. This is our routine, to hold each other close, ever since the first time, so many years ago. A ritual we perform, an offering to each other.

Our mouths work hungrily over one another, mutual hardness growing as we caress and suck and lick and kiss, tongues wet with the sweet-sharp taste of him in me and me in him, hands gripped between our bodies curled protectively around each other. Our hair dries in the sun while we let ourselves linger in this moment on our forest bed of moss. There are few moments like this remaining, we both know, and they will not be left to chance.

Friction. Faster. More. Silk satin skin. More. More. Wet hot heat. An aching crest builds and builds deep at the core of me and just before it peaks, Achilles pulses in my mouth and I feel him arch his back, his hips pressing him in deeper as he clenches the lean muscles of his abdomen. I am flooded with him, thick and sharp and sweet. Moments later my head is spinning, light and airless, bliss seeping through my limbs. I feel him swallow my release, the back of his throat brushing the tip of me like a kiss. He breathes in deeply through his nose, the tension slipping from his muscles as I tremble with the last quivers of spent contentment.

We release each other slowly, softly. I push myself to sitting and shift, moving to lie down next to him again, face to face. He reaches to rub the pad of his thumb against my lips, then leaves a gentle kiss there, disturbing the moss beneath his shoulder as he moves. His eyes shine, more gold than green in the sunlight. He holds me, body and spirit, in the embrace of his arms and the tenderness of his smile.

It is so easy, the deepest pleasure, to be alone with him.

He is my home.

“Time is against us, Achilles,” my voice sounds small against the wind in the trees, “and what will happen after?”

He makes a little noise like melancholy music, low and melodic, the meaning clear. A flicker of longing passes through the lines of his face. Through we were once boys, we cannot be any longer. We are men, and however tempting to say the Fates are cruel, they are simply Fates. They hold our destinies without remorse, merely claiming what is owed them. We have few moments left. 

Few moments, but this is one of them.

He holds my hand.

“I will wait for you, Patroclus. And I will love you until you are a handful of dust, feeding the roots of these trees, and then even after.”

I will wander purposeless without him. I can only hope it will not be for long.

Where he goes, there am I; where I go, he is beside me.

One day we will feed the trees, but in this moment, his hand rests safe in mine.

 


End file.
